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My opinion is that this likely does to modding what was done to gaming 20 years ago. Slowly evolving it from a labor of love to a calculated investment of resources. Modding right now is a great representation of what enthusiasts are interested in (see SimCity vs. Cities: Skylines). If it becomes a money making machine that will subside to cheap content that appeals to the lowest common denominator. Don't be surprised if someone founds a company that only makes mods for AAA games as soon as this goes mainstream.

You can be flagged and marked for removal, also Steam can just remove projects that they don't like. See, that's what happens when you introduce a pay model into a thing, it destroys the community around it.

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

You can be flagged and marked for removal, also Steam can just remove projects that they don't like. See, that's what happens when you introduce a pay model into a thing, it destroys the community around it.

My opinion is that this likely does to modding what was done to gaming 20 years ago. Slowly evolving it from a labor of love to a calculated investment of resources.

That might be the best two sentences you've ever posted.

Part of what got me so excited about replaying Skyrim once I built my PC was this incredible modding community. If Steam's new model becomes the dominant force in the space, then it's almost certainly going to ruin everything that made it special.

Real-world interpretation: I really don't want to start paying for this crap.

Real-world interpretation: I really don't want to start paying for this crap.

Bingo. We're running how many mods on skylines? Even if they were just a quarter each we'd have already dumped like $5. Doesn't seem like much, maybe, but that's on top of $30 or $40. It's getting nickel and dimed to death.

Got a PS4 this weekend, with Minecraft (not played it before, still getting into it) and GTA V (had it on the PS3). I've got Project Cars limited edition pre ordered for the Xbox One, and now I'm wondering whether to switch to a PS4 digital pre order. I've read a few things about the differences between the game on the different platforms, and other than the Xbox upscaling 900p to 1080p, they seem fairly even, Xbox does a few things that the PS4 doesn't do/isn't as good at, and vice versa.

Was thinking this over, and the next gen consoles (many projecting they'll be out as soon as 2017) are going to need to be 4x more powerful than they currently are to handle 4k gaming. If they don't fully support 4k, do you think they'll be considered by most to be failures?

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

Was thinking this over, and the next gen consoles (many projecting they'll be out as soon as 2017) are going to need to be 4x more powerful than they currently are to handle 4k gaming. If they don't fully support 4k, do you think they'll be considered by most to be failures?

Not really. There's very little 4k content outside of games, and within games I still see more people 'supersampling' 4k to 1080p than outright playing it. I'd cite 4k TV adoption being poor, but I'm under the impression companies are practically giving it away.

You seem rather sure about the year, care to explain why? Sony claims they're putting the pedal to the metal developing the next console, not surprising given this generation's performance issues. Also, 2 years is a very long time WRT content, 4k will likely be the norm by then.

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

If they can make consoles that render the actual 3D in 1080p, upscale to 4K and render the text and interface at 4K, they can argue that they are 4K consoles. That shouldn't be so hard to do, as you can have fixed function hardware for the scaling.

I agree that neither Sony not MS will update by 2017. There are noises that Nintendo is about due, however.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

Steam Community :: Group Announcements ::
"Removing Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop
APRIL 27 - ALDEN
We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.

To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

But we underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.

Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know."

Wow, that was fast. Good to see they finally realized what a crappy idea that was. Now hopefully they'll just add a tip jar of some sort to compensate those who make especially good mods.

(
Last edited by Cap'n Tightpants; Apr 27, 2015 at 11:12 PM.
)

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

These are lies. They wanted to make money off of other people's work. Why couldn't the reasons given above work when you don't charge?

No, I think that their intentions were honorable. They want to grow modding, and the ability to charge for mods is a part of that. Furthermore I think that the entire Steam Workshop project was built with this in mind down the line, because without it, Workshop only costs money.

I'm OK with Valve getting a cut from mods. They host the content and they provide the payment solution, and they deserve to be paid for that service. What I'm less OK with is Bethesda getting 45% and the mod creator getting 25%, and even more that it is Bethesda that sets that split. I get that the developer should get something to incentivize them to make modding possible (and easy), but I do not agree that they should get almost twice as much as the person that does all the work. No, a 5-10% cut to the developer and the rest to the mod creator.

An example: One of the mods I have spent the most time in is Fall from Heaven II for Civ IV. This is truly an example of how modding should work. Soren Johnson at Firaxis made it clear that he wanted mod support in the game, and even pushed to (eventually) release some of the source for mod developers to work on. Firaxis then made a "best of" pick of promising mods and included them with the second Civ IV expansion. This let the mod makers show off what they could do, and let users know what was out there. Development on the mod continued into a massive, deep 4X game, until the lead developer was hired away by Stardock to clean up Elemental, something that eventually lead to Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.

In this situation, I like to think that a small kickback to Firaxis/Take Two would have helped get some real modding support in Civ V as well, a solid sales platform for the mod would have given it some exposure, and some cash in would have been more than deserved for the developer - and maybe would have let him stay on the mod a little longer, polishing off some of the balance issues that remain.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

Steam isn't public. They don't have to worry about shareholder concerns.

It isn't about shareholders, it's about profits, he does have a board of directors and other executives in the company to answer to. And, though it would shock some to discover this, Gabe likes money as much as anyone else.

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

That article is from 2011. Steam has much more competition now - and the recent change in EU sales tax rules for downloads must have hurt too. But no, I don't think that Valve profits was the main concern. Over time, not being able to charge for mods is not sustainable.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

Like Jello, there's always room for more, and that was before other sites like GoG really took off.

You're painting him as a corporate whore, though. That's not like everyone else.

Being a CEO that pushes for more profits doesn't make him a whore, it makes him normal (or maybe "typical" is a better word). The idea of charging for mods isn't the problem, it was their execution and proposed policy within the current Steam ecosystem (and the fact that modders aren't exactly known for being diligent with their long-term support).

"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character." - M.L.King Jr

Biggest disappointment for me thus far is the 'must-haves' have either sucked (1886) or not to my taste (Bloodborne)

So we've got the PS4 at around 22.5M and according to Ars, the XBone at around 14M*. How bad is this difference? Is there anything that can make up over 10 million sales? Would anyone (game dev) accept an XBone exclusive offer now?

So we've got the PS4 at around 22.5M and according to Ars, the XBone at around 14M*. How bad is this difference? Is there anything that can make up over 10 million sales? Would anyone (game dev) accept an XBone exclusive offer now?

Big fat asterisk – the difference is less galling in the US. While I don't think MS wanted to tank in Europe, being competitive in the US is more important. As far as I know, that holiday blow-out really closed the gap. Wish I could see how that gap has fared in the three months since.

I see they are finally fixing the problem of the best player getting nothing for a reward in Crucible.

Increasing the marks rewarded is good and bad. Hopefully they increase the weekly mark cap to 150. Having a weekly mark cap as low as 100 is terrible. Although I'm more concerned about the Vanguard weekly mark cap as I'm not much of a Crucible player.